After being sent home over Thanksgiving to revise their pitches
for a multi-billion-dollar, taxpayer-funded “bridge loan” to keep
them a float through the end of the year, Michigan’s “Big Three”
automakers returned to Capitol Hill this week to renew their
respective cases.
The retooled bailout plan included requests from automotive
manufacturers that Congress pass legislation requiring every
individual to purchase a vehicle (whether or not the definition
of “everybody” includes Americans who are under the age of 16 or
resident aliens is expected to be worked out at a later time) and
mandating the price of gas be cut by 30%.
The preceding paragraph is, of course, not true. However, if it
sounds more than a bit over the top to you (as it should), then
consider this: America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a
national trade association representing over 1,000 insurance
providers covering an aggregate 200 million Americans, has made a
series of recommendations to Congress for health care “reform”
that is identical to the aforementioned example in every way
except one: it’s real.
Last week, AHIP unveiled its
eleven page proposal for overhauling the health care system.
The plan included a call for Congress to implement “an
enforceable individual coverage mandate” — quite simply, a law
requiring that every individual in America purchase and maintain
health insurance — and to legislate the cost of health care down
by 30% over the next five years.
Further, the proposal calls for expanding the State Children’s
Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and Medicaid, and making
“advanceable and refundable tax credits” available to Americans
whose income is at or below 400 percent of the federal poverty
line.
Imagine that: a “reform” plan, released by a service provider,
that proposes that the government (a) require every American (all
300 million plus of them) to purchase what they’re selling, often
with taxpayer dollars, and (b) declare by law that those insurers
must be charged less by providers and hospitals for the services
their policyholders require.
With the ushering into office of a new regime that is supportive
of a version of health care reform based on increased regulation
and government control, it is no surprise that AHIP has offered
up a plan that both provides for its self-interest and adheres to
a form of the ideal overhaul result put forward by the Democratic
Congressional majority and the incoming Obama administration.
Unfortunately, while AHIP’s proposal will likely appeal to many
now in power in Washington —≠ which is almost certainly why it
took the direction it did — it is far from an actual solution to
America’s many health care problems.
A far better proposal than the one submitted by AHIP would have
been built around reducing the factors that cause health care to
cost as much as it does in the first place, and removing the
barriers that cause many people to choose not to purchase
insurance.
Simply including in the proposal a recommendation that states
allow mandate-free or mandate-lite policies to be sold to those
who desire less than full “Cadillac” coverage replete
with required cost-increasers like
coverage for birthmark removal, hair transplant, and alcoholism
(these must be included in every policy sold
in the states that require them, and paid for by consumers, even
if the policyholder has no birthmarks, has a full head of healthy
hair, and/or is a teetotaler), as well as a recommendation that
Congress knock down barriers to interstate purchase of health
insurance policies, would have made at least a portion of AHIP’s
plan realistically workable and effective.
Unfortunately for the millions of us who are consumers of health
insurance — and for the millions more who would likely purchase
insurance if the state and federal governments would stop
attempting to “reform” the industry by increasing regulation and,
as a result, increasing the product’s cost — AHIP likely had
little choice in the matter, as putting a market- and
reality-based proposal in front of the incoming Congress would
likely have resulted in its being laughed off of Capitol Hill.
The result of that is what we see in the 11-pager released on
Wednesday: a proposal that works within the unfortunate existing
political framework to salvage what America’s insurance companies
can from the coming disastrous overhaul of health care, while
leaving consumers and patients out in the cold altogether.
Until America embraces real reform to its health care
system, which can only take place when competition is allowed to
re-enter the marketplace and when people control their own health
care dollars and medical futures, rather than simply trusting to
third parties to decide (and fund) the treatment that is best of
them, consumers and patients are going to continue being
slighted, while insurers and Congress work together to enact and
enforce policies which look great on paper (and on the insurers’
balance sheets).
The effect of the health care “reform” policy coming down the
pipe will be to allow congressional Democrats to pat themselves
on their collective back over a job well done, while the working
men and women who actually have a need for insurers’ and
providers’ products continue to be stiffed.
